Discover Ascoli Piceno

Ascoli Piceno stands at about 150 metres where the Castellano joins the Tronto, in the far south of the Marche and close to the Abruzzo border, with around forty-six thousand inhabitants.

Piazza del Popolo is the centre: a long rectangle paved in polished travertine, closed by the arcaded Palazzo dei Capitani del Popolo, the church of San Francesco, the Loggia dei Mercanti built by the wool guild in the early 1500s, and an Art Nouveau cafe of 1907.

Piazza Arringo, older and more open, holds the cathedral of Sant'Emidio with Carlo Crivelli's polyptych of 1473, the civic picture gallery and the archaeological museum.

The city was Asculum, capital of the Piceni, and the Social War against Rome began here in 91 BC.

Two Roman bridges survive in use, and enough medieval tower-houses remain for the old nickname — the city of a hundred towers — to still make sense.